The Importance of Online Reputation Management for Small Businesses

January 30, 2010 – 6:31 pm

Small businesses have a unique place in today’s market. In many ways they are safe from many of the things that bring other businesses down. Many small businesses are unable to offer employee benefits such as 401k’s and insurance and although it is difficult at times, it saves the company a lot of money. Small businesses don’t have a lot of the costs that larger businesses do and, if they do, they are much smaller scale. On the other hand small businesses need all the business they can get, especially during these uncertain economic times. There are few things you can do to protect and build your online reputation. Management of your reputation is key, especially for small businesses.
The first thing that you want to do is to build and maintain a website. It does not have to be anything especially fancy, but clear and precise. The easy it is for a potential customer to see and understand what it is that you do and what you can do for them, the better off you will be. It is also a good idea to get established on some of the social networking sites. The three main ones are Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin. Thousands of users worldwide log on to these sites every day. There is no better way to get massive amounts of free exposure.
The second thing to do for your Reputation Management is to watch what others are saying about you online. Check your name or your companies name on Google and other search engines frequently and see what others are writing about you. If it is all positive, then you are in the clear. If it is negative then you are going to have some work to do. It is important to stay on top of this. Small businesses in particular are greater risk for losing business over negative comments, especially if you are not well established.
There are many companies out there, like Elixir Interactive, that can help you keep your online reputation clean.

Tags: established, online repuation management, Reputation management, small businesses, Twitter

Posted in Online Reputation Management | No Comments »

Making a Career of Online Reputation Management

January 26, 2010 – 4:32 pm

If you enjoy computers and want to be part of the fast-paced internet-based world, perhaps a career in online reputation management and SEO would be just the job for you. There are several benefits to starting out on your own. One, you can work from home and have complete flexibility of your time and hours. And two, there is no special degree or certification required. And for many who are facing uncertainty in the job area, they are benefits you may not want to pass on.
But before you go and quit your day job, be warned there are many challenges should you decide enter this field. With the internet taking up a larger and larger portion of our lives it is natural that it would provide many jobs as well. As a result, there hundreds, perhaps thousands, of individuals claiming to do SEO. On the flip side there are many well established companies that control much of the market for online reputation management. Elixir Interactive is one such company. They offer many SEO and reputation management services and deliver what they promise.
Another important aspect in beginning such a career is experience. Understanding the way that search engines operate and the algorithms that they use is essential to any successful career. It is not something that you can just pick up over night. You must also stay on top of the constant updates and changes that the internet and search engines make. There is also the threat that SEO analyst could become obsolete as search engines become more refined and natural in their search patterns. Many companies, especially the larger ones, are deciding to move in-house for their marketing and SEO needs. Unfortunately there is not much room to move around, or up, with such a position.
Online reputation management and SEO is an important part of our internet based world; however, pursuing it as a career is not for the faint of heart.

Tags: degree or certification, experience, online repuation management Elixir Interactive, repuation management

Posted in Search Engine Optimization | No Comments »

Page Load Speed Part of Google’s Algorithm

December 18, 2009 – 1:39 pm

Following on from our post the other day (SwiftRank By Optimizing Page Speed) I was looking for more information on this. I found one post from Search Engine Land Site Speed, Google’s Next Ranking Factor which indicates that page load times will be a factor in the algorithm next year.

This makes sense from a user perspective. I have been advocating for a long time keeping the weight of your home page as low as possible, and have always recommended having less than 1MB in total downloads for the home page. This total number includes not only the page source, but also images, CSS, JS, and any other file that might be downloaded by the home page.

The problem is most web masters do not realize the size of their page as they’re on a fast T1, and they’ve got most of their site’s files in their browser cache. One of the most extreme examples I had of this was a client whose site would not download into our site analyzing tool because it was too big and the software refused to download any source code over 30 MB in size.

Another example was a client with a flash sidebar that was over 5MB to download.

To see how bad this is you can use a calculator such as this one to type in your page size and see how long it would take to download:

5MB at 56k would be 9 minutes, at 512k (DSL speed) it would be over 1 minute, and even on a T1 it would take over 30 seconds.

When was the last time you waited a minute or two for a site to download? If kept waiting most visitors would hit the back button and visit your competitor site listed next in the rankings.

So what about Google changing their mind on page download times? Myth busting: delays in page loading from Matt Cutts 2006 stated that download times were not a factor, and perhaps they still aren’t now, but in future, and from a usability point of view speed counts. Do your visitors a favor and optimize your pages now.

Posted in Search Engine Optimization | 3 Comments »

Can you copyright hashtags?

December 18, 2009 – 1:04 pm

Interesting post on dot.life on the BBC News site. Someone in the UK is claiming intellectual property rights to the hashtag ‘#uksnow’. Now realizing that the patent office allows patenting life (anyone see ‘Food Inc’?) why wouldn’t they allow patenting this mark? Can you imagine every time you wanted to use a hashtag you had to worry whether someone had patented it first? What about if you built on a tag, such as #uksnowing – is it a new tag or an extension of an existing tag?

Would the large corporations start buying up patents and enforcing them, forcing the small guys into line through the treat of lawsuits?

Pretty soon you wouldn’t be able to write anything on twitter in case it violated a patent, then what? People move to other services, Twitter dies, the corporations have made their profit and the fat cats have got paid (anyone see Crooked E?).

Makes me glad to work as an SEO where we only have to worry about world domination by Google (Google Phone anyone?)

Posted in Copywriting | 2 Comments »

SwiftRank By Optimizing Page Speed

November 26, 2009 – 6:57 pm

Google algorithm changes are a big deal for all of us in the industry. They key is to be aware of all that is happening and be ready to anticipate, test and react. One of the keys to obtaining swift rankings is to ensure that your pages load quickly.

Site speed is always an issue. If your page is not loading quickly enough then it can create problems for your site. You can check your site speed using this page speed tool.  Use it by downloading the page speed add-on.  Page speed is part of the best practices of web design.

Posted in Uncategorized | 11 Comments »

Does Your Copy Ignore Your Site Visitors?

November 2, 2009 – 12:50 pm

By Karon Thackston © 2009, All Rights Reserved

Sometimes choosing which company to buy from is about like deciding which brand of canned peas is the best. To make matters worse, the copy on most websites doesn’t offer any help.

There are three major offenders in copywriting that I see constantly on the Internet. The first is generic copy that offers no specific differentiation points — in other words, reasons why the visitor should choose you instead of the thousands of other sites that are just a click away. The second is overused fluff copy that has no substance. And the third? Using company-focused copy (“we” and “us”) instead of customer-focused (“you” and “your”). It’s the third offender I want to address in this article.

I am literally shocked that — after decades of marketing evangelists preaching “It’s not about you!” — website owners still don’t get it. What’s not to understand? Copy that focuses strictly on your company and practically or completely ignores your prospects doesn’t work nearly as well as copy that speaks to your target customers in their language and about the benefits they will receive.

I discussed this very topic with SEO friend Jill Whalen recently, and she commented, “I think people don’t understand how to write to the customer instead of about their company.” Perhaps my cohort is right. So, in an effort to educate, let’s look at several before and after scenarios.

Company-Focused Copy Examples

It’s as if this web design firm has intentionally made an effort to ignore their site visitors. They use their company name, “the client,” “customers,” and practically every other word to describe who is reading the page. Except, that is, the most

important: you. You must address the one, single person who is reading your web page at any given moment, not a collective population of people.

ABC Web Design is dedicated to customer service. We make great strides to offer high levels of customer service and communication with clients. As a small company, we understand one-on-one service is needed. Our designers have developed hundreds of small-business websites and we make the process simple. Contact us for pricing and a free consultation today.

Do you see that not a single “you” is used? The site visitor is never addressed. It’s all about the company. Now let’s change it to be about the customer:

ABC Web Design is dedicated to your success, promising high levels of customer service and communication. You’ll be kept up to date — on a one-to-one basis — about the progress of your project. Relying on years of experience, your web designer makes the creation process simple, guiding you through every step.

Contact us for pricing and a free consultation today.

Here’s another example.

We have the finest contractors in the marketplace today. Our kitchen experts have been recruited from the most successful companies. XYZ Kitchen Remodeling Company of Kalamazoo has the support of a large network with over 300 reliable and professional kitchen remodeling contractors serving most of North America.

Here’s the rewrite:

When you want to work with the finest contractors in the marketplace, XYZ Kitchen Remodeling Company of Kalamazoo answers the call. Not only will you benefit from using experienced kitchen experts, your renovation is backed by the support of the largest network of kitchen remodelers. That gives you the knowledge and skills of over 300 reliable, professional kitchen remodeling contractors in North America.

See the difference? Is it a sin to use the words “us” or “our”? Certainly not, but your copy should be weighted far more heavily with customer-oriented words than company-focused ones. Tell visitors about your service, your results and your experience.
But do so in a way that makes them and their success the center of the copy.

When you keep the focus on your company, you prevent your target customer from knowing the benefits they’ll reap after working with you. However, when you adjust your focus, you shine a bright light helping visitors to quickly see why you’re the best choice for them.

Karon Thackston creates customer-focused copy that connects and converts. If you’re struggling with copy that doesn’t perform, contact Karon today through http://www.MarketingWords.com for online copywriting or copywriting training.

Posted in Copywriting | No Comments »

The Curse of Ecommerce Resellers: Lack of Differentiation

September 19, 2009 – 1:00 pm

By Karon Thackston © 2009, All Rights Reserved

During a recent copywriting consulting call with a new client, we discussed her primary concern: having good traffic, but no sales. I’ve seen this a thousand times before. Usually, what I find is a site filled with content that is chock-full of keyphrases and sounds stupidly repetitive. The solution is easy:
Write natural-sounding, persuasive SEO copy that entices customers to buy. But this client’s site didn’t fit the stereotype.

The home-page copy needed some work, but it wasn’t awful. The category and sub-category pages had no copy at all that needed to be fixed. The product descriptions were canned (straight from the manufacturer). While that’s definitely not the best way to go for several reasons, it’s not a death sentence. But still, for a site
- even a brand-new one – to have several hundred unique visitors a week and not one sale was frustrating.

We looked at some stats. Low bounce rate, high number of pages viewed per visit, acceptable length of time spent on the site.
The rankings left something to be desired, but they’d come along soon enough with a few tweaks and some linking.

As we clicked our way through the site’s pages, it became clear.
This site suffered from a common curse among e-commerce
resellers: lack of differentiation.

Why Should I Buy From You?

Generally speaking, most grocery stores carry nearly the same things. So how did you decide to shop at the one you frequent most? Chances are it was because of the store’s location. Online, we don’t have that advantage.

When e-commerce resellers carry the same exact items as hundreds or thousands of other sites, comparison shoppers have a difficult time deciding whom to buy from. Most often, it falls to price.
Since my client wasn’t branding her site to be the cheapest, she had lost the location and the price advantage.

After searching through dozens of websites offering the same products, the surfer had no way to answer their most burning
question: Why should I buy from you?

Identifying Differentiation Points

As our tour continued, I asked questions – lots of questions – in an effort to help my client find ways she was different and/or better than her competition.

> > Do you offer free shipping or reduced shipping (with or
without a minimum order)?

She did, but that wasn’t stated visibly on her site. There’s one differentiating item. Online shoppers love free shipping.

> > Do you hold any promotions?

She did, but that also wasn’t clearly stated. She made a note to draw attention to her promotion on the home page.

> > Do you offer quantity discounts?

She did, but the link to the copy that explained the discounts was rather hidden. We discussed adding a few words of copy right by the price to let visitors know discounts were available.

> > Can you tell me about the wish list feature? What happens
after someone adds products to their wish list?

She didn’t know, so we went through the process together and created a plan for strategically placed copy that would entice visitors to add items to their wish lists. We then discussed the particulars of creating copy for an autoresponder series that would follow up with people who had created a wish list, but never ordered.

When our hour was up, we had identified several actionable steps for her to work on to differentiate her site from her competitors. Of course, they’ll all need to be tested to see which works best to achieve her goals. But for now she’s busy tweaking and tracking instead of scratching her head.

Karon Thackston is an SEO copywriter and trainer. She has authored 3 popular books including the keyword optimization guide “Writing With Keywords.” Get details at http://www.WritingWithKeywords.com today.

Posted in Copywriting | No Comments »

Search Engine Strategies in New York City

September 12, 2009 – 8:28 pm

The next Search Engine Strategies (SES) conference to be held in New York City will occur on March 22 through 26 2010.  SES is one of the leading global conference and expositions educating in the fields of search engine optimization and search engine marketing.   There will also be a series of SES Search Marketing Events which will provide instruction from some of the industry’s leading lights and search engine representatives.  When in New York stay at some of the best New York hotels including the Hotel Gansevoort in the Meat Packing district.

Tags: hotels, new york, search engine strategies, ses

Posted in Search Engine Marketing (SEM) | No Comments »

A great backyard grill

July 31, 2009 – 2:15 pm

The kind of grill you have says a lot about you. Do you do it up classic style and grill your meat over an outdoor wood stove? Do you simmer your meat over charcoal for that great smoky flavor? Or do you have one of those fancy  drop in grills with a full on outdoor sink?

No matter how you cook outdoors, grilling is an American past time and it has some deep roots in American culture. It is only recently that is has become a full on bonanza of basically full on kitchens, fully equipped with everything, even outdoor kitchen cabinets.

The root of modern day American grilling comes from a place that used to only manufacture buoys. The Weber grill was the invention of a man that worked for a buoy manufacturer. Weber started the charcoal grill phenomenon that is still going strong today. The company even has a specialty restaurant where it makes everything from steak to desserts on the grills.

The gas grill came along later as a simpler option to the charcoal variety. They require less room because you don’t have to worry so much about things catching on fire. A charcoal grill needs more space. That is why gas grills are popular with people who live in apartments. A person who has an apartment with a small patio can safely grill using a gas grill out on their patio or deck.

If you have never tried grilling food over an open flame you should give it a whirl. It will make you feel like you are going camping.  A camp fire is good for way more than just making Smores.

It really does not matter how you cook it, food just brings people together. And there is nothing like a grill and a game to make a weekend with friends and family.

Tags: backyard grill, drop in grills, outdoor kitchen cabinets, outdoor sink

Posted in Home & Garden, Outdoors | No Comments »

PHP UTF-8 and simplexml

July 22, 2009 – 5:33 pm

Recently the page checking code was breaking when used on a site. The XML returned from the supplier was being read using file_get_contents() and passed straight into simplexml_load_string() which was then kicking out a UTF-8 Encoding Error.

The way around this is to use utf8_encode() to ensure the string is encoded into UTF-8 before passing to simplexml_load_string(). In this instance my code goes like:

$FileContents = file_get_contents( $URL ) ;
  if ( $FileContents !== false )
  {
   $xml  = simplexml_load_string( utf8_encode( $FileContents ) ) ;

}

Posted in Programming | No Comments »